The publisher of the Star Tribune, Par Ridder, testified in court Monday that he knowingly shared confidential St. Paul Pioneer Press data among senior executives at the Star Tribune, a move the Minneapolis paper's owners now say was a mistake.
Ridder's videotaped testimony came in the first of what's expected to be a three-day hearing that could decide his immediate future. The Pioneer Press is suing the Star Tribune and Ridder -- who in March left his job as publisher of the Pioneer Press for the same post at the Star Tribune -- seeking damages, the removal of top executives and assurances from the Star Tribune's owner that it will not continue to poach top talent.
The hearing has offered the most detail yet in a civil case that accuses Ridder of breaking a pledge of loyalty to the Pioneer Press and swiping the paper's financial information when he left, moves that the suit charges were part of an effort to jeopardize the paper's future.
This week's hearing is to determine whether Ridder and two other executives who followed him across the river, Kevin Desmond, the Star Tribune's senior vice president of operations, and Jennifer Parratt, director of its niche publications, should be removed from their jobs at the Star Tribune for at least a year. Desmond is on the job; Parratt, while being paid, is not allowed to work for the paper until the legal issues are decided.
Legal observers say it could be a week or more before Ramsey County District Judge David Higgs makes his ruling.
Ridder, in videotaped testimony presented by Pioneer Press attorneys, also said he took a set of noncompete agreements that prohibited him and his senior management team from going to work for the rival Star Tribune. Previously Ridder, 39, has said that he had been released from the agreement.
Click on the headline to read the full story of Star Tribune reporter Matt McKinney,
A chip off the old blockhead.
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